In 1800 75% of the population of the United States was directly involved in farming. That number has declined steadily since then until today the percentage directly involved in farming is in single digits. U. S. per capita agricultural production continues to rise.
Over the course of the 19th century and into the 20th century the proportion of Americans involved directly in manufacturing increased until nearly 20% of American workers were employed directly in manufacturing. Over the last 30 years that proportion has declined. U. S. manufacturing continues to grow and today, in fact, produces more than ever, as I have noted several times before.
Although these transitions, first from agriculture to manufacturing, then from manufacturing to what is broadly referred to as “services” have caused some dislocation, in some instances lengthy, it has not resulted in massive unemployment. Actually, quite the reverse. Until the recent downturn unemployment had been tending downwards for decades, i.e. not just as a consequence of the successive bubbles. How is it possible to increase agricultural production, manufacturing production, and employment all at the same time?
The answer is indirect production. The guy who works in the truck assembly line producing a truck that is used by the farmer to haul things around a farm is engaged in the indirect production of food, indirect agricultural production. So is the copywriter who writes advertising copy for the truck, the web designer who works on GM’s web page, and whoever posts on GM’s Facebook pages. Not to mention all of the people who work for GM’s suppliers, the people who process their payrolls, and the banks where they put their money. An enormous number and proportion of people are now involved in indirect agricultural and manufacturing production.
That fact incorporates not only Adam Smith’s example of pin production, illustrating how specialization leads to efficiency but also Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction.
I don’t mean to be hard-hearted but today’s unemployment is no worse than it was in the economic downturns of the early 1980s and merely a shadow of the unemployment, however measured, of the 1930s. Somehow things got better.
Is it possible that things are different this time? Sure. We had better hope they aren’t for reasons I’ll explain in a post I’ve been working on for some time.
” Until the recent downturn unemployment had been tending downwards for decades, i.e. not just as a consequence of the successive bubbles. ”
But, our percentage employed has dropped over the last 10 years.
“I don’t mean to be hard-hearted but today’s unemployment is no worse than it was in the economic downturns of the early 1980s and merely a shadow of the unemployment, however measured, of the 1930s. Somehow things got better.”
The 80s unemployment was largely a result of the slowdown precipitated by Volcker’s raising of rates to bring down inflation. Unemployment, predictably, dropped as rates were dropped with inflation better controlled. Our current problem is much more akin to the 30s. I think our current situation is worse in some ways. We entered the 30s with little public debt, so increased public spending allowed for repair of private balance sheets. The rationing of WWII helped. We ended WWII with very low levels of privately held debt. A boom was awaiting. While I think the stimulus and TARP stopped our freefall at the end of 2008, I dont see it as likely to be very successful with our current debt levels. I dont expect austerity to be positive either.
Steve
Not only was there little public debt in the 1930’s, but deficit spending was much less. It peaked at under 5% of GDP in 1936. Today it’s twice that.
“Not to mention all of the people who work for GM’s suppliers, the people who process their payrolls, and the banks where they put their money.”
And make those robot welders, and welding wire, and industrial shielding gases, and consumable tips, and computerized controls, and maintenance workers……
But as we have all just learned from a recent comment: The robots are coming! The robots are coming! Run for your lives! Socialism is the only answer! The horror of it all!
When Ford started making cars I wonder how many called the end of work and employment as we know it because horse manure street scoopers went out of business. Ah, for the good old days.
The robot welders allow less skilled workers to be employed. The welder can then work in a vending machine manufacturer making DVD rental machines. Other welders will work for the robot welder manufacturer as a consultant regarding weld requirements and techniques. The robot welder replaces at least one welder, but this loss is replaced by a far greater number of people being employed.
Technology will always increase the work force, and if the technology is too complicated, it will be “dumbed down” to allow those less gifted to use it. Cash registers with pictures allow McDonalds to employ people who cannot work a regular register. Grandma can use a PC because she does not need to know how to load drivers into himem. Microsoft is going to make Windows as simple as possible, and Apple machines are available for those who can afford them.
If there are hordes of unemployable people, there is some other problem. With our technology, the US should be ahead of any other country in production. Robotics, automation, advanced production methods, exotic metals, new composites, etc. should have kept the offshoring to a minimum. Since it has not, there is some thing(s) causing this distortion.
“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”
Yes, and none of those people ever found employment ever again. Then the world ended.
What?!?!?! Nowai!!!!
Uhhhmmm I don’t think so. Please explain how you think this worked.
But with enormous public debt. Also, there was a general consensus at the time that reducing public debt was something worthwhile. Now the view is public debt either doesn’t matter or is quite possibly a good thing.
Maybe, but I think it also kept in place most of the rotten elements of out economy. Right now our banks are sitting on all sorts of derivatives related to the Euro. Now if that goes tits up….
“but I think it also kept in place most of the rotten elements of [our] economy”
Ah, derivatives. Check out this “chootspah”:
Former AIG CEO Sues Claiming Taxpayers Need To Pony Up $25 Billion More
Does anyone envision a world where all our competitors have been conveniently burned to the ground? That’s what we had coming out of WW2. Does anyone envision major percentages of earth’s labor force being essentially taken off-line by ideology? That’s what we had through the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.
Yes, the robots are coming. In fact, they’re already here, and combined with a world at peace where low-end manufacturing jobs can easily be off-shored, this time is different.
In my little industry, publishing, we’re seeing devastation coming. Printers, book sellers, the truckers who move the product around, editors, are all on the chopping block. Will they be magically replaced by moving from printing books to writing books? No. Those will be lost jobs.
I understand the quasi-religious faith that something ‘else’ will come up to absorb all those folks and allow them to earn a good living. But faith is all it is. I understand the argument from extrapolation that the problem has always been solved in the past therefore it will be solved in the future. But that’s a close relative of the aforementioned quasi-religious faith. No doubt the dinosaurs were sitting around poo-poohing the notion of an asteroid strike on the grounds that it hadn’t happened in living memory.
Things do change. Vast numbers of people can now be effectively replaced as workers by programs that cost essentially nothing to reproduce and can be designed by a handful of developers.
Work is being done on a computer program capable of being the world’s greatest diagnostician, a computerized Dr. House. At the same time apps and supporting devices are on the way that will gather all the data required to feed that computer through your phone, or even through an implanted biological monitor. Billions will be spent and hundreds employed in developing that technology which can then be distributed at zero cost and replace tens of thousands of doctors. The diagnosis could be linked to pharmacies to dispense meds — all without a single human involved, let alone expensively-educated doctors and pharmacists. That’s not 100 years away, it’s closer to ten.
We aren’t just looking at replacing strong backs with expensive bits of steel, we’re looking at replacing educated minds with programs that everyone will be able to buy for 99 cents.
So laugh all you like, Drew, but you’d have laughed 20 years ago if I’d told you you’d be able to instruct your phone to book a flight to Paris, get you a room, and make a reservation at Ducasse, all without interacting with a human. And that the program involved woud be given away free with every phone. I’d think a man who deals with numbers all day would be particularly worried: computers are much better at crunching data and reaching conclusions from same than they are at writing stories.
It is kinda hard to feel sorry for the folks who put the scribes out of business. Damn Gutenberg, and damn the printing press.
“For the Snark was a Boojum,you see.”
@Steve- The rationing forced people to repair balance sheets while public spending supported full employment. When WWII ended there was plenty of savings for both spending, everyone needed new appliances, and new investments.
Steve
Well, I think Michael is right to at least ask the question. What’s the phrase, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results?”
If there’s anything we should be doing as thinking humans, it is questioning assumptions, particularly given all the promises made over decades that aren’t coming to pass.
That’s not to say I’m convinced that Michael is right, but I don’t think his theory should be simply dismissed.
I don’t mean to be hard-hearted but today’s unemployment is no worse than it was in the economic downturns of the early 1980s….
There are important qualitative and quantitative differences, even ignoring some differences in how the rates have been calculated during the two time frames. The biggest one is this: Unemployment rose rapidly in the early 1980s, and fell rapidly as well; Unemployment rose somewhat rapidly this time (it felt very rapid, but that is probably personal bias speaking) and it IS NOT DECLINING. Such declines in UE-3 rates as have been reported have been artifacts of how the BLS measures UE, and not due to a return to previous employment levels. There is nothing in the post-WWII data that matches the prolonged, wide-spread down-turn in employment we are experiencing now, nor the duration of UE for a great many people. Not to mention the decreased wages for a great many people who have managed to hold onto their full-time status.
This time IS different, goddamnit, and it’s actually there in the BLS data.
In order to assume that machines (robots, programs, whatever form,) won’t permanently replace many employed humans you have to assume that humans have some permanent edge over the machines.
What is the nature of our advantage over machines? What is our evolutionary advantage in this competition? Precision? No. Speed? No. Endurance? No. Perseverance? No. Consistency? No. Strength? No.
Creativity? Yes, but only a tiny segment of homo sapiens qualifies.
Cost? Well, we still have people picking fruit but we manage to edge the machines out only by paying slave wages to desperate people. Eventually the cost of strawberry-picking machines will fall so far that no human will be able to beat them on cost and still live.
Ask yourself this: would I rather give my Burger King order to the employees they can afford? Or would I be happier using an app? If you have a choice between drive-through A, manned by a surly, under-motivated human, or drive-thru B manned by Siri, where are you going to buy your burger?
Machines are simply better than we are in a lot of ways. And the number of ways in which machines have the edge is growing. If you look at it in evolutionary terms — every bit as valid, I’d argue, as purely economic terms — we (as animals) are evolving slowly while machines are evolving rapidly and gaining new capabilities every minute. Of course the funny thing is that we’re the ones directing machine evolution, deliberately working to make machines that are able to replace us. In fact we don’t make a machine unless it’s better than we are at performing a task.
“But with enormous public debt. Also, there was a general consensus at the time that reducing public debt was something worthwhile. Now the view is public debt either doesn’t matter or is quite possibly a good thing.”
We could retire the national debt tomorrow if we wanted to, and the only results would be:
1) The private sector loses its risk-free savings vehicle
2) The Fed loses control of interest rates as banks, suddenly flooded with reserves they can’t use, compete on the inter-bank market to rid themselves of those reserves, thereby pushing the inter-bank interest rate to zero unless the Fed jacks up the IOR.
I’m afraid I don’t see the point, unless it will help you sleep better.
“So laugh all you like, Drew, but you’d have laughed 20 years ago if I’d told you you’d be able to instruct your phone to book a flight to Paris, get you a room, and make a reservation at Ducasse, all without interacting with a human. And that the program involved woud be given away free with every phone. I’d think a man who deals with numbers all day would be particularly worried: computers are much better at crunching data and reaching conclusions from same than they are at writing stories.”
Nice try, Michael, no sale. And your concluding sentence I think shows your ignorance, or worse.
I remember reading Future Shock in something like 1969 or 1970 and thinking, “hey, this sounds right and better get ready for this.” My entire career is a case study in being nimble, well rounded and adaptive.
But you, like most liberals, view the world through a static/defeatist/elistist “trichotomy.” The unwashed masses are incapable dopes, but as an elitist, you will take care of them, the poor dears.
You’ll tax the capable, and then provide the zoo animals with a 20 x 20 room, somewhere to shower, some gruel, and perhaps a TV so they can watch Jerry Springer and don’t get too restless. Its an arrogant, cruel and disgusting worldview.
Your argument has been around forever. And I mean forever. And yet, people like me, glass half full types, have a faith in the capability of people to adapt and overcome. They always have. For centuries. Its only the rise of the welfare state mentality that has put people into the convenient position of electing to become wards of the state: ask a welfare recipient who they, ahem, “work for” – Aid to Dependant Children. This is a mentality that is sick. Really sick.
Lastly, I wouldn’t laugh at all at your example, I’d rejoice in it. Being the defeatist you apparently are, you find this progress distressing. Me? Well, I don’t lament people no longer shoveling horseshit from the streets because of some newfangled technology called the automobile. And as for “being a man who deals with numbers all day” you show a remarkable ignorance. Investment and company management is all about a knowledge and experience base, and importantly, judgment – and most importantly, people judgment. Number crunching is about 5%. Your failure to comprehend that, quite frankly, makes those claims of yours of a high IQ, well, highly suspect.
I’d think a man who deals with numbers all day would be particularly worried: computers are much better at crunching data and reaching conclusions from same than they are at writing stories.
The part about data analysis simply isn’t true. Machines at this time simply do not do that. They process the data and deliver results per their programming, but that is not the same thing as actually interpretting data. The interpretation comes via the programmers. When they can either program themselves OR have very VERY advanced features I’ll believe it. Actually I imagine the programs the quants use at the hedge funds and the high frequency trading programs DO meet my stated requirements. But it’s also true that the people using those programs have a helluva lot more understanding about what they’re seeing than just about anyone else on the planet would. (Note that I don’t think they understand it all that well, or we wouldn’t have seen the crash in 2008.)
Besides, the people that make the decisions will always want someone around to explain it to them. The decidersaren’t always very good at interpretting data themselves, and they need people to lead them through the morass. Programs may eventually be able to do that, but the people I’m thinking of (I’ve known some myself) simply aren’t likely to master using the programs. It’s possible that those folks will be replaced by those that can, but I kind of doubt it. Working one’s way up the corporate ladder is a skill, of a sort, and not everyone has it.
(I would also note that a fair number of the people that actually crunch the numbers aren’t all that good at interpretting data either. Just because you’ve got an MBA in finance, or a law degree from Harvard, doesn’t mean you actually understand how everything fits together.)
And yet, people like me, glass half full types, have a faith in the capability of people to adapt and overcome. They always have. For centuries.
This is egregious bullshit., so wilfully ignorant as to qualify as evil. Not everyone has adapted. Human history is full of stories of people dying in vast numbers because they couldn’t adapt, for some reason or the other. Others have been enslaved or otherwise trampled under the feet of the victors. There’s a big difference between surviving and flourishing, and a bigger one between surviving and dying.
Investment and company management is all about a knowledge and experience base, and importantly, judgment – and most importantly, people judgment.
yep, judgment is important. imagine how bad things could have gotten in 2008 if all these BSDs hadn’t exercised judgment along the way….
I don’t know much about fast food places, as we rarely dine out there. However, the small inexpensive, deli, or family owned favorites we frequent have servers who are engaging, friendly and make eating-out a pleasure, instead of a robotic, hum drum obligation. I like being around and associating with human beings, in the process of daily living — tellers you can talk to, human phone voices over robotic menus, a travel agent who assists with transportation plans.
Relationships are far more rewarding and real than merely punching in a code, using an iphone app to conveniently access service. Also fostering verbal interaction between people is how we keep humanity in human beings. If we become too distant from our own capacity to deal with all intellectual tiers of society I think we lose much of the flavor of life. Where’s the fun in becoming the side-kick of a machine?
Ello! how do you do my fellow arsons?
Drew:
Your response was very nearly content-free.
Let me address the glass half-empty notion. I am adapting. I’ve managed it my whole life. But unlike you I don’t assume that everyone else is me, or is in my position.
But I suspect I’m in danger of being replaced, too. I am after all a biological computer. Were you to take some electrodes and stick them here and there in my brain you could make me blurt out story ideas, for example. I think I’m quite creative, but I don’t believe that I’m somehow beyond the reach of machine evolution. I’d guess we’re within 10 years or so of the first competent computer-written novel. It probably won’t be high art, but then 90% of what sells (including my books) isn’t high art, either.
This isn’t about feeling sorry that people no longer shoveling horse shit. It’s about wondering whether we are necessary — or at least whether all of us are necessary — to sustaining human life. Do all of us need to work, and is there work to be done that is profitable.
Why don’t you make me feel better and list, say, 20 jobs that can be done by people of less than average intelligence and can absolutely not be replaced within 20 years by an app or machine? Or the same with jobs for people of average or above intelligence. I don’t deal in faith, I’d like some examples.
Technical innovation and advancement is probably the biggest destroyer of jobs…and one of the largest creators. It is the transition periods that are the issue.
It isn’t faith, and thanks for the snide insult jackass. It is based on empirical evidence. We have had technological innovation and advancement before. It has wiped out entire industries. But people did not just sit around and remain unemployed forever. So throwing out a stupid insulting comment that is at odds with history is just childish.
No it isn’t just faith and no you don’t understand. It isn’t just mere extrapolation, it is noting that people tend not to just roll over and die when bad things happen. People try to improve their life. That is what we learn by looking at past events where technology has rendered an existing industry out dated. Those resources are shifted to other productive activities. Further, it can’t be just faith if it is based on past historical events. It is a belief based on evidence.
Yes, and they have a life sentence of unemployment? What errant nonsense.
Oh and if the (marginal ) costs are zero then the price is zero. Well absent intellectual property laws that protect the monopoly for those who hold intellectual property. Kind of funny how you keep chastising Drew and I for having a philosophy of “I want to get rich, and you can fuck off.”
Probably not for a long time Michael. Artificial intelligence, the strong kind, is way way off. I write programs for forecasting at work and periodically somebody says, “Lets try to automate it more.” But there is a problem, the programs, alot like the apps you are blathering on about, can’t readily incorporate non-data based information. For example, if I know a rate option is going to be opening back up, I can make an adjustment to the forecast to take into account that kind of non-data based information. Even a sophisticated forecasting program like a Bayesian model (ever heard of Bayesian learning?) would still need human input. The models are slaves, even more so than us humans, to the historical data. The ability to design a program that can “think” in this way does not yet exist. Even absent this process what can look likes a good model can be a very bad model. Comparing the future forecast values to the historical data still requires a human to evaluate.
So when you write,
It becomes quite apparent you aren’t at all familiar with what number crunchers do.
Icepick also makes a good point here,
That is a part of my job. We recently had such an issue and I and another analyst had to explain the concept of an autocorrelated error process in a regression model. Then when they go new data and used the same old model they got very shocking results. I looked at the data and said, “Oh, look that right there is due to the recession. Dummy it out.” Then I had to explain how a dummy variable would work and why it would do what they wanted it to do. I also had to explain that the actual data they were looking at wasn’t the data they really wanted to see (nobody thought to keep records of that data–basically the maximum load that certain of our transformers can handle) and instead were relying on a proxy–actual recorded load on those transformers. But actual load is subject to additional variables so you should incorporate them in your analysis to “marginalize” them out when it comes to cost setting purposes.
Can a program do all that? No. Not right now.
Merely summarizing data on the other hand is pretty easy, but even there it is helpful to have a data person handy to explain things. For example, quite a bit of our data is seasonal. So to deal with that lots of people will graph out twelve month ended data. Smooths out the seasonality in the data, but if you have an outlier it creates a new problem. Because that outlier will now show up in 12 data points vs. 1 it creates 12 outliers in the data and can make things look rather odd…until I explained the problem to everyone.
I get the impression you misunderstand the process here. Even if such jobs are eliminated it isn’t that the people working them have to create new jobs. The process will likely involve other people as well who aren’t below average who will see an opportunity with those unemployed workers. Will it pay as much? I don’t know, but even if it doesn’t if you are correct on the cost aspect of these things prices should be dropping anyways so that there may not be much if any loss in the real standard of living.
By the way, I hope this comment is not lost on you Michael. It is very much the problem you are talking about in regards of extrapolating from the past. That is all these programs can do for now. While it will often do alright, in specific instances it can spectacularly wrong. But the human would realize this limitation and correct for it.
Let me give an example on my side of the argument. Apple has an app which allows anyone with an iPhone to walk into an Apple store, pick up a product on the shelf, and walk back out the door without interacting with a single human.
In one fell swoop it rendered most of its store employees obsolete. Of course it will take some time before that begins to take effect. Habits die hard. But their next step will be to do what gas stations did to us for years when they pushed us from full serve to self-serve: they’ll offer a small price cut if we handle the transaction ourselves through the app.
At the same time Apple is still hiring high end developers and designers. But how many of those store clerks can make that leap? Maybe 1%? Less.
What Apple can do today Macy’s and Safeway can do in five or ten years. They can eliminate the entire job of retail clerk. Their robotic systems won’t steal from them or call in sick or treat customers badly or require health insurance. They will be superior.
What about people who drive for a living? Back in 1998 IIRC we wrote a book series that began with a scene set in 2011 that involved a self-driving car. A little optimistic, but not much. Ten years from now will you be riding in a cab driven by a man or a machine? The machine won’t be drunk, won’t be talking on the phone, won’t be distracted. Which one will you trust? At the airport will you take the human driver or the robot with the 100% safe driving record?
I can sit here and list jobs that will be given over to machines all day long. Can anyone list the jobs those displaced workers will take instead? I doubt it. I think what you can do is say, “Well, it’s been much prophecized but never realized.” Which of course is exactly what everyone was saying the day before Orville and Wilbur took their flight.
It isn’t just that the machines will be cheaper for the businessman. It’s that they will also be better. Humans will come to prefer them, to trust them over human workers, and with good reason. The other day my pharmacist gave me a prescription that was for some other guy. It’s not the only time that’s happened to me. Odds that a machine would have made that mistake?
Computers are not going to be writing novels or anything else for a long time, if ever. Computers do not “think”, and today’s technology will NEVER be able to replicate human thought. The CPU’s are adding machines, but they add really fast. The intelligence of a computer does not even match the brain of a roach.
The IBM computer than can play chess does not “think” about moves like a human. The programmers have loaded it with all the possible known strategies. It can learn, but during matches, the programmers are fine tuning it. A human chess player may be able to see 7 – 10 subsequent moves, but the computer can project 100’s of moves. The computer would not be able to understand illogical moves by the human, but the player could use these to fool the computer.
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) of Google, Siri, computer games, etc. is all an illusion. They work through probabilities. Past performance usually is an indication of future requests. They have a probability matrix, and they use this to guess the future. The reason they are good at it is because a computer can easily process a multi-dimensional matrix. What computers cannot do is “think outside the box”. Computer programs are only Do loops, If statements, and Logic Gates (AND, OR, XOR, etc.).
Robots are similarly dumb machines. Most of them do nothing more than simple repetitive tasks, but they can do them fast and precise. The experimental robots (Japanese walking/running machine) are somewhat autonomous, but they are only able to function within a small set of boundaries. If you give them a good shove, they would topple. The really useful ones are controlled by humans. Factory robots (welding robots) are really no more intelligent than an automated packaging machine. Robots are no match for a roach.
The problem with creating a useful robot is that movement is far more complex than most imagine. Think about scratching your nose. There a substantial number of things happening. In addition to your movements, you need to be able to sense where your nose is located, and you need to be able to sense the pressure needed. If any of these steps is off, you may poke your eye or rip your skin. Furthermore, the human brain works in parallel, and the “threads” switch between being connected and independent as needed.
In order to get to the level of a roach, we would need technology substantially different than what we have today, and the human mind and body are far more complex than a roach’s. You could think of a computer like a film. The film consists of individual frames, and when these frames are projected quickly, there is the illusion of movement. A computer is a sequence of number additions, and when the numbers are processed quickly, there is the illusion of thinking. Incidentally, the CPU (“brains”) only adds. Subtraction is an illusion. Boolean algebra is the mathematics used by the CPU, and interestingly, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (“Lewis Carroll”) was a co-creator.
The publishing industry is changing, but that is due to the internet. The internet technology facilitates it, but it is changes in human behavior that is causing the problem. Much like the music industry, the publishing industry will need to change. Once e-readers and tablets become commonplace, magazines, newspapers, and books will look similar to how things were. Right now we are in unexplored territory, but as it is settled, things will become more familiar. Different but similar.
The truck drivers will deliver e-readers and tablets. The bookstores will sell e-readers and tablets. Editors will not be replaced by spell-check or grammar-check anytime soon, if ever. Writers will be able to get their works out without the large publishing companies. One thing that publishing companies should consider is more small run or vanity printings. Many blog writers are putting together their posts into books. Most are probably e-books, but a real book would be a nice stocking stuffer. As a creative people, you all need to think creatively
It is all 0’s and 1’s. It is either “yes” or “no”. The computer cannot process “maybe”. To a computer, things are either “black” or “white”, and gray does not compute. Old newspaper pictures and woodcuts are made up of a series of dots. The dots are positioned to give the illusion of a picture, but a television picture is similar.. As long as you do not think like a computer, you can never be replaced by a computer. Hopefully, you will have a better understanding of existing technology.
Sorry for the long post.
“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”
Actually, I can see where you’d take that as aimed at you, but in my head it was for Drew. Which I admit doesn’t justify it.
But that’s not the alternative. The alternative is a life of leisure and luxury. Give a person a choice between taking the bus two hours a day to fry burgers and make barely enough to survive on the one hand, and living just as well while sitting at home watching TV and playing with the kids? Not everyone is a workaholic — also not a shot at you, I’m a workaholic.
That I freely concede.
You say likely. I don’t think so. We’re both guessing. That’s the problem, and it’s why I am not reassured. On the other hand, I agree it’s essentially a matter of transition. I just don’t think it’s a transition from full employment to bump in the road and back to full employment. I think it’s a transition from full employment to something different.
I hate to admit this, but there’s a lot less thinking involved than you might imagine. Bear in mind that I do this for a living, so I have a fairly intimate knowledge of how it’s done. Every writer has a certain number of moves. Think of it as knowing how to sing, say, 20 songs, each song consisting of however many notes.
What I do is in effect combine and recombine those songs into various playlists. (I would argue that I do it better than many but less well than others.) A computer could be programmed with half a dozen themes I go back to regularly. For example I go to the idea of the rules of nature as reprogrammable software on a fairly regular basis. (It’s my wink/nod work-around for pesky reality.) A program could certainly analyze my word choices and spot recurring patterns and preferences. Likewise with sentence construction, punctuation, so on.
A lot of the elements in writing that seem original to amateurs are actually formulaic — necessary. For example, if you have a hero you have to have someone for him to talk to. Someone for him to oppose. Someone for him to care about. Once you have a foe you need the same for him/her.
By the way, I’m not suggesting it will be easy and I think I’ll be able to outwrite a machine for the rest of my career. But a machine could outwrite Stephanie Meyer right now. (Now that’s me taking a cheap shot.)
I hate to admit this, but there’s a lot less thinking involved than you might imagine. …
[snip]
… A computer could be programmed with half a dozen themes I go back to regularly. …
You underestimate the human mind. I do not know how you compare to other authors, but a computer cannot even come close.
Spell-check and grammar-check are helpful for informal writing, but they should never be used for any formal documents. With creative writing, a computer can not replace an editor or an author. It seems easy to you because you have not examined each step. You may be able to put together a formal outline and a selection of sentences, but it would not even approach the creativity of a 5 year old child. The themes may be able to be “programmed” as formal outlines. I doubt it, but I will allow it to go unchallenged.
Each word is dependent upon the words that have come before it and that will come after it. These words are combined into sentences, and the word choice and placement is done deliberately. The structure of a sentence can be formulated many ways with the same meaning, but again it is done deliberately.
Each sentence is dependent upon the sentences that have come before it and that will come after it. These sentences are combined into paragraphs, and the sentence structure and placement is done deliberately. The structure of a paragraph can be formulated many ways with the same meaning, but again it is done deliberately.
It is the same for paragraphs and chapters.
Each word, sentence, paragraph, chapter, and book must fit together coherently. Each is dependent upon each other. As each sentence is formulated, it must be considered in the context of the other parts, the whole, and various combinations of the parts. The amount of calculations a computer would need to do are staggering.
In addition, the formal rules of grammar, spelling, and style need not be followed. They can be intentionally be broken to achieve a desired affect. A cadence is incorporated, and it can be important to the work. This is just a short list, and you could add many more. Not all authors are talented, but even the worst author will far exceed anything a computer can do.
Presently, computers can barely translate from one language to another. When they get this down, you can plan to think about starting to make preparations to worry, maybe.
“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”
@TastyBits
… Each word is dependent upon the words that have come before it and that will come after it. …
This is grammatically correct, but it would have been better as:
Each word is dependent upon the words that have come before it and the words that will come after it.
A computer would never have caught this.
“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”
TastyBits
Just curious —- what do you do for a living? You seem to have a detailed perspective of the computer/robotic world, which I found fascinating to read. Your knowledge seems to be objective, versus what most of us submit, which is purely subjective and influenced by anecdotal, or our own personal experiences and/or speculations, on this topic.
As a layman on this subject, your comments resonant with my own personal views. The human mind, alone, is such a frontier land, which we continue to explore in hopes of finding out what makes people ‘tick.’ Mapping the brain has been a relatively recent adventure. Looking for causes of addictions, variants in people’s behavior, sources of emotional abnormalities or boundaries — the human brain produces an endless source of questions as to it’s unique and complex function. That’s why, when I compare it to technology, the human brain wins every time in it’s awesome, endless ways of being mystifying, inspiring and underestimated.
Tasty:
If you had a sufficiently accurate brain map you could take a scalpel and cut out everything that makes me able to write a book. (150 books so far, give or take.) You could place those quivering pink blobs of flesh on the table and have before you all that it takes to be creative.
Within those gooey bits there are of course billions of connections. Wondrously complex and capable. But still just basically a physical object. I could have a stroke tomorrow and in seconds be deprived of my creativity. It ain’t magic, it’s meat.
I’m going to stop reading that wall of text right there and point out one critical point.
This App does not think. At all.
This kind of thing has been happening for centuries. It is not revolutionary. Economies have adapted to this just fine as well and without rising unemployment.
So until we develop strong AI…that is machines that can truly think and solve problems and do so in a way that entails adjusting/modifying their own programing your story Michael is purely science fiction.
If, if, if….how about we deal with facts and data instead of wild conjecture. Right now computers cannot do what you are talking about. All your examples are extremely limited and are no different in regards to their impact on the economy than past labor saving devices.
Except that from a creative standpoint it is worthless in this form. It only has value when it is connected to you and working properly. Yeah, its just meat, but the idea that that meat is within decades of being replaced by computers is just not accurate.
Sure, that is why we work, to enjoy our leisure time, well most of us. But that doesn’t mean people still wont do things to make life better. And note what you are saying here:
Option 1: A cruddy job.
Option 2: A life of luxury and leisure.
Of course people are always going to pick 2. And to the extent that technology allows for more of 2 vs. 1 people will tend to go for it. I don’t see that as a bad thing.
The problem is in how things are allocated. Right now more and more is allocated via the political process and it isn’t just simply giving voters what they want, but also monied interests going out and ensuring not only their current standard of living, but of bettering it and if it comes at the expense of others who cares.
Like I said, I believe in the market economy as a way of allocating resources not because I like the market in and of itself, but because it does a damn fine job most of the time. When it doesn’t many times you can see the dirty hands of people mucking around and trying to get more than their fair share (rent seeking). It is ubiquitous and it is apolitical.
Oh…the important part:
Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Away from home and using phone so rather than get a thumb cramp I’ll just second Steve and wish everyone a nice Thanksgiving. I’m making paella not turkey. Non-conformist ya know.
@Jan
I just got switched from programming to engineering programs, and I have been involved with computers for the last 15 years. I only know about robotics what I have read and what I have worked out. I like to know what is in the “black box”. The fact that things go in and other things come out is interesting, but I want to know how and why it works. Once things are stripped down to their essence, they become fascinating.
I try to be objective, but I also try to be dispassionate. I really try to throw out alternate views. I try to put forth an argument that can be defended logically. When you think unconventionally, it is best to not let the argument become personal. (By argument, I mean a logical argument or debate.) Most people would consider my opinions to be speculation.
“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”
@Michael Reynolds
… You could place those quivering pink blobs of flesh on the table and have before you all that it takes to be creative.
No. You would have a mess. The brain map would only indicate the physical area of activity related to creative activity. The blobs consist of a network of neural pathways, synopsis, and chemicals. This network consists of many connections, and removing them would cause the system to collapse. Furthermore, these blobs are part of a whole, and you would need to cut out a lot more.
You really should stop worrying about this, or you will have a stroke.
“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”
I don’t think the issue is really one of AI replacing someone like Drew, or Steve or Michael. The issue, for me at least, is this: How are the marginal people in our society going to have gainful employment and the opportunity for upward social mobility? And by marginal people I’m talking about roughly the bottom half of our population in terms of intelligence and education.
Yes, we’ve gone through a few transitions already – from Agriculture to industry and from industry to services. In each case there was a place for no, low and semi-skilled labor to go. Assuming the the pattern holds, where will it go this time? How will these people be employed? That’s a serious question that I think deserves more than handwaving.
Where I think I disagree with Drew and Steve is that I don’t think the pattern is some kind of iron law that’s destined to repeat itself in our current transition. I can’t help but think of the Roman Republic where small farmers, the bulk of Rome’s citizenry and the heart of Rome’s economy, were gradually forced out of business and replaced by large estates owned or leased by rich elites worked by slaves. The result was a huge underclass who, with no way to trade their labor for compensation, became wards of the Roman state, sated with bread and games for centuries to come. There weren’t factories or any real alternatives for them to go.
You guys are probably right – something we can’t see is, perhaps, right around the corner. But then again, maybe not.
PS: Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
Yes, and they have a life sentence of unemployment? What errant nonsense.
Doesn’t look like errant nonsense to me. Of course, I’m a lifer….
@Andy
The Roman example was not caused by a technology, but you may be able to make a case for displacement of freemen by slaves.
… And by marginal people I’m talking about roughly the bottom half of our population in terms of intelligence and education.
Intelligence is a subjective concept. If intelligence is a measure of problem solving ability, many folks who count themselves as gifted are sadly mistaken. Spend some time with these folks, and you may be surprised. (you – generally not specifically) Most intelligence tests are based upon certain assumptions in a fixed domain, and the solutions to problems are dependent upon these assumptions.
Education is also a subjective concept. If education is the process of learning, many folks who count themselves as smart are also sadly mistaken. Again, most education curriculum is of a limited type, and anything outside this domain is discounted.
Criminals are an extreme but useful example. Most criminals would be classified in the bottom half of intelligence and education, but they are neither dumb nor ignorant. Few in the upper half would be able to function in their world, but many of them have the skills to function in the upper half’s world.
Many people working in menial jobs are not there due to lack of intelligence or education. More often than not, it is “who you know, not what you know”. The value of higher education is mostly the contacts and opportunities. Welders, pipe fitters, operators, etc. may not have a degree, but that does not make them less intelligent or educated than the degreed engineer.
The most insidious aspect of this attitude is that it assumes that anyone who do not meet one’s standards is nothing more than a draft animal. With no plow to pull, they will be useless. They will be the “smart man’s burden”. This IS NOT an indictment of anybody, and I assume that the attitude originates from true concern. The logical conclusion is that in order to spare them, we must leave them in their miserable condition.
These same arguments have been used many times through history. What was to be done with freed slaves? They were only able to do manual labor. Without somebody to tell them what to do, they would never be able to figure it out, and without somebody to make them do it, they never would do anything. Fast forward to segregation, how would the black man ever be able to function in the white man’s world? It would be better to let each stay with his own people. It is easy to make such proclamations when you are on the upper half of the population.
For the British, the Indians were the “white man’s burden”. Without British rule, the Indians would never be able to function. The fact that they had been getting along without the British for some time was not considered of any importance.
Of course, we could put saddles on them and train them to be rides at our children’s birthday parties.
“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”
Tasybits,
You set up a nice row of strawmen to demolish yet didn’t really address the question.
@Andy
The first part was specifically directed at your post. The second part was directed at an attitude that I detest. I am not impugn you, but this attitude is embedded in your question.
The attitude is that certain people need help, and luckily, there is someone to help. The helpee is unable to function without the help of the helper. The helper is never one of the helpee’s, and the helper is acting for noble reasons. The helpee is not the equal of the helper. It is arrogant at best.
I am not very familiar with the Roman Republic, but I do know there were peasant uprisings. I do not know if these included the small farmers, but I assume these were similar to other peasant uprisings throughout history. I am more familiar with the Roman Empire, and during this period, it was not uncommon for the landowner to be declared treasonous. His land would be confiscated. He would be executed. And, his family would be sold into slavery. If he was lucky, his land would be taken for the greater good – eminent domain.
Agricultural issues are recurring themes throughout history, and I do not know of any specific examples directly caused by technology. The stirrup indirectly caused a disruption for the Anglo-Saxon peasants and landowners. Slaves would be a better example of farm labor being displaced.
Most displacements due to technology are accompanied by restrictions on the displaced workers. This is not limited to agriculture technology. Government intervention is usually involved, and this is to give someone an unfair advantage. There is not enough space to support this assertion with details.
There may be instances where this is false, and I am open to examples. I am not an expert, and I could be wrong. I just do not know of any examples.
————————–
In regards to your you specific questions, I reject the assumption that half the population lacks the intelligence and/or the education to be employable. If you limit this group to 10%, I would be more receptive to this assumption, but I think this 10% includes people unemployable for many reasons. Furthermore, the displaced must have had a job to be displaced. The displaced should include young folks, but this would be limited to people who will be displaced by the lost jobs. This would exclude many of the Wall Street protesters. Many of them made a bad career choice, and these jobs were not displaced by technology.
Our present situation should be used with caution. The job losses are due to many issues, and many of these job losses are not related to technology improvements. Anything related to Real Estate should be excluded. This would include the plumber’s helper, the real estate agent, the Wall Street MBS trader, etc. Presently, many of the unemployed include many of the upper half.
… In each case there was a place for no, low and semi-skilled labor to go. …
This is knowledge that postdates the event. At the time, the future was as unknown as it is today. This time is no different than the previous events. Some guesses can be made by examining the cause. Whatever is causing the displacement will have requirements that need to be met by workers. Computer technology requires somebody to manufacture the parts and to assemble those parts. Working remotely requires a network. A physical network requires cable, and a wireless network requires transmitting towers. Increased network traffic requires more cables or transmitters.
The displaced worker may need to move to get one of these jobs. Workforce mobility is one factor in the US’s success. Throughout history most of the lower half folks have been tied to the land. Moving from one location to another was illegal, and in cases where it was allowed, there were numerous disincentives to moving.
Technological advances are limited during these conditions. These advances will be disruptive to the rich and powerful, and they have no reason to want change. There are additional reasons for the technological slowdown, but it would take too much space to detail them.
The migration issues we have been experiencing have been detailed by @Dave Schuler. These will contribute to our present situation until they are resolved.
The “underground economy” is an example of the ingenuity of people. Many of these jobs are a result of government intervention. When the cigarette tax is increased, cigarette bootlegging jobs become available. Outlaw gambling, and bookie jobs are available.
With limited government intrusion and free movement, things will mostly work themselves out. There may be some assistance needed, but it should be very limited. Humans are very resilient.
Hopefully, this is a better answer to your questions.
“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”
Through most of human history, in most societies, people who lost their jobs — as defined in their particular era — did not simply adapt, in many cases they simply starved, or were sold into slavery, or died of diseases that were in part a consequence of their lack of employment. A servant turned out of a home in Victorian England might find another gig, then again he might die begging in the street.
Thanks to varying degrees of socialism that is no longer the case. Advanced western nations don’t let people die. Mostly. But if you’re a farmer living on the edge in Africa or south Asia and someone, somewhere in the world figures out how to grow sorghum (whatever that is) more cheaply than you do, you burn through your $1.23 in savings and your spare yam pretty quickly. And then you often die, and so do your kids.
For 99% of human history, in 99% of civilizations, employment failure due to bad weather or other factors beyond your control meant you died. Most of that had very little to do with being displaced by technology, obviously, the point is just that it’s facile and ahistorical to suppose that things always work out when people lose their jobs. More often than not it probably meant they died. Which I suppose is one way of adapting.
Technology’s impact goes back to irrigation, superior plows, etc, but it’s undeniable that the pace of technological advancement has quickened in the last couple of centuries. So we don’t really have some centuries-long base of knowledge on the effects of technology on employment. We have maybe a couple centuries, more like decades. Decades are blinks of the eye.
Computers in particular have only been around since the end of WW2 — 70 years, round numbers. So again, not much of a base line in historical terms.
In other words the, “It always works out,” argument is based on very little historically. It only “all worked out” for a narrow slice of time when the current issue under discussion — computers, robots, apps — didn’t yet exist.
But here’s the important thing:
1) One of the drawbacks of moving frequently is that you never know your oven as well as you should.
2) Recipes are always wrong on timing. I always read it and think, “Nope, they’re wrong about the lobster or whatever,” and then nevertheless I listen to the recipe, and my instinct is almost always right.
I guess that’s an argument against robots right there: you can’t trust them to know when the recipe is wrong.
“. It only “all worked out†for a narrow slice of time when the current issue under discussion — computers, robots, apps — didn’t yet exist.”
It probably will all work out in the long run, but what happens in between. What if that time gets longer and longer with each new technological advance? The sci-fi writers who conjecture on this topic think we end up with a word of people who are largely on the dole.
Steve
@michael reynolds
Have you ever seen the results of starvation and diseases up close? Have you ever been to the edge of Africa or south Asia?
I suspect not.
People do not starve because they cannot sell their crops on the world market. If they have edible crops, they eat them. I am not sure where they get “$1.23 in savings” or “spare yam”. In many of these places, farming is done using a stick, a sack, a hand, and a foot. Poke a hole, drop in a seed(s), cover with you foot, and do it again. When there are crop failures, people move.
When people do not move, the reason is because they are not allowed to leave. This is usually accompanied by any aid being blocked from going into the region. When there are catastrophes, countries and people respond with aid. Mass starvation is usually intentional.
They would be classified as unintelligent and uneducated, but they are not. These people are not just sitting around waiting to die. If the external forces are removed or decreased, things will work out. Some people will move. When the population decreases to a level that can be sustained, the problem is solved. They do not need your sympathy. What they need is to be freed from the oppression. I assure you that they would welcome technological advances as fast as possible.
If “varying degrees of socialism” has solved the problem, does that not render the discussion moot?
“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”
Michael,
Why is a computer any different than any other labor saving device? Currently computers cannot think as a human does. As such I don’t see how it is much different than other previous labor saving devices.